The 2.2 -> 2.3 Rebalance Thread

[Zarel]

We were on the subject of intuitiveness. And as far as that goes, this is a bug. We can usually refrain from triggering a bug as well, but that doesn't mean it should be considered a feature.

Well, no, the ability to be stupid is not a bug. You can also kill your HQ by alt-clicking on it with a mortar; is that a bug?

Well, kind of. The lancer is in about the same tier.

The lancer is T2. The MRA is T1. The lancer has the MRA as a prerequisite. It's a true rocket, as opposed to the MRA, which launches mini-rockets. Of course it has better technology that allows it to shoot half a tile further.

It is also a rocket weapon that looks like artillery. Again, this is on the subject of intuitiveness.

It looks like short-range artillery to me. Compare it to long-range rocket artillery like Ripple and Archie, which have much longer launchers, to suggest long range.

Being mounted on the sides of the turret gives them alot of swing room. And AT rockets are much more likely to be guided, which is a real benefit for AA.

Gives it a bit of swing room, but not as much as a mini-pod.

And we've already established that lancers are unguided.

Nevermind, found it, the complete changelog ships with the game:

0000-00-00: Version 1.01
* New:
* Support for WZ add-on packs - WZ now has the functionality to support additional maps, units and research technology.
* New maps - Zigurrat, Wheel Of Fortune and The Valley Of Death.
* Unit limit increased to 100 per side in Multiplayer.

With the playstation version, there could be no patches, so it was forever 1.00.

The PC version has drive mode in a very limited "point and click" sort of way.

Hmm. Doesn't say what the limit was increased from. I could swear it was higher than 40...

No I don't, that seems like a real feature. Hover craft are really weak, they should be able to dodge. If you want to kill them, use homing weapons, cyborgs, vtols or a less predictable firing pattern for you artillery.

It's hard to do "less predictable firing pattern for artillery". We don't allow you to shoot arbitrary locations.

It is plenty fair, you have to deal with risk in war. Many wargmes, via abstract dice rolls or projectile simulation build in a risk element on purpose. Folks who hate chance play chess. But warzone always had a luck factor, it was more abstracted before and now it is simulated in 3D.

Touché.

Is this because of the age of warzone's engine or is it just a matter of how fast your particular CPU is?

And why not use any hitscan weapons? Laser should be hitscan, gauss could be hitscan, give MG's a spread angle and maybe they could be as well, etc.

Hitscan + Spread Angle = Simulation, Chance, No Missed Collisions Between Cycles

It's to do with whoever wrote the current projectile system did a poor job of it didn't write it to support fast projectiles. I won't name the guy, but the current projectile system was written after 1.10.

Devu is planning on rewriting the current projectile system, but depending on how he does it, it could still suffer from the same problems. Fortunately, he plans on making lasers instant-hit, so at least I won't have to worry about slow lasers.

To further complain about the current projectile system (I can do that as long as I don't name who wrote it, right?), I'll point out that the 1.10 engine supports instant-hit weapons (in fact, 1.11 made lasers instant-hit), but the current projectile system does not.

[Deus Siddis]

Well, no, the ability to be stupid is not a bug. You can also kill your HQ by alt-clicking on it with a mortar; is that a bug?

Only a stupid person would fire on his own building. But a newb or anyone who doesn't know the tech tree very well could easily think MRA should use a spotter. It's a gotcha which requires you to look up and compare the stats or learn the hard way. It isn't the end of the world but it isn't intuitive either.

It looks like short-range artillery to me. Compare it to long-range rocket artillery like Ripple and Archie, which have much longer launchers, to suggest long range.

Actually comparing it to the Ripple is the source of alot of this confusion. It appears to be a smaller version of an extemely long ranged artillery weapon that relies heavily on spotters. This makes the MRA seem like a lighter, shorter ranged weapon with a similar purpose. Not a near direct fire weapon with a radically different purpose.

Gives it a bit of swing room, but not as much as a mini-pod.

And we've already established that lancers are unguided.

I thought for sure there was a "wire guidance" upgrade for them or at least TKs. Either way modern AT weapons are almost all guided. You might expect a scav AT rocket to be unguided, but not a lancer or such.

Hmm. Doesn't say what the limit was increased from. I could swear it was higher than 40...

It couldn't be anymore than 80 though and could easily have been 40. Remember this changed the version right after going gold, so it wouldn't stand out in everyone memory. But it does reveal more about what kind of game WZ was supposed to be- one closer to the action/RTT end of the spectrum than a full on RTS.

It's hard to do "less predictable firing pattern for artillery". We don't allow you to shoot arbitrary locations.

It should allow you to fire anywhere you tell it to, like in old C&C even. That it doesn't is just a relic of the old starcrafty projectile code.

Either way a spread angle should also be supported and should create the right effect.

Touché.

Everytime someone sees someone else's side of an argument on the internet (or divides by zero) it rips a black hole somewhere in the universe. You should really try to be more careful. xD

It's to do with whoever wrote the current projectile system did a poor job of it didn't write it to support fast projectiles. I won't name the guy, but the current projectile system was written after 1.10.

Devu is planning on rewriting the current projectile system, but depending on how he does it, it could still suffer from the same problems. Fortunately, he plans on making lasers instant-hit, so at least I won't have to worry about slow lasers.

To further complain about the current projectile system (I can do that as long as I don't name who wrote it, right?), I'll point out that the 1.10 engine supports instant-hit weapons (in fact, 1.11 made lasers instant-hit), but the current projectile system does not.

You should push for supporting both fast moving projectiles (as much as possible) and hitscan weapon collisions. Combined with the current homing weapons, life will be good.

[Zarel]

Only a stupid person would fire on his own building. But a newb or anyone who doesn't know the tech tree very well could easily think MRA should use a spotter. It's a gotcha which requires you to look up and compare the stats or learn the hard way. It isn't the end of the world but it isn't intuitive either.

True, but "a newb or anyone who doesn't know the tech tree" very well could easily putz around in T1 for an hour, while everyone else has rushed to T3. That's a far bigger disadvantage than using sensors with MRA, and that's a disadvantage that pretty much all RTSes share. Plus, you don't know the range of any weapon until you use it, and I figured out that you weren't supposed to use MRA with sensors after the first time I tried it. Then again, I was playing 1.00, so there was no Ripple Rocket to compare it to in the first place.

I agree that it would be nice to disallow MRA/SRMA from being assigned to sensors, but then I bet I'm going to have other people complaining about how unintuitive it would be that these two are the only indirect weapons that can't be assigned to sensors.

Actually comparing it to the Ripple is the source of alot of this confusion. It appears to be a smaller version of an extemely long ranged artillery weapon that relies heavily on spotters. This makes the MRA seem like a lighter, shorter ranged weapon with a similar purpose. Not a near direct fire weapon with a radically different purpose.

Well, it is a lighter, shorter ranged weapon with a somewhat similar purpose. It's just that it's a ton lighter and a ton shorter ranged and demands a radically different play style. But the purpose of "kill enemy structures" is roughly the same.

I thought for sure there was a "wire guidance" upgrade for them or at least TKs. Either way modern AT weapons are almost all guided. You might expect a scav AT rocket to be unguided, but not a lancer or such.

I guess, but that's not really real guidance. I mean, that's just in-game flavor text; no upgrade does anything but mess with numbers. In terms of game code, there are only two levels of guidance for direct weapons: direct, and direct-homing. Lancer is direct. Scourge is direct-homing.

And either way, it's plausible that a wire guidance system would work for ground units, but not very well for aircraft. And then there's the point that you can't really angle the launcher up very well in the first place.

It couldn't be anymore than 80 though and could easily have been 40. Remember this changed the version right after going gold, so it wouldn't stand out in everyone memory. But it does reveal more about what kind of game WZ was supposed to be- one closer to the action/RTT end of the spectrum than a full on RTS.

I agree that it's probably 40. But remember that I've spent more hours playing 1.00 than 1.10 or 2.x. That's mostly because the time I had the most free time was when I was a little kid, and I didn't know you could actually update games. Then again, I wasn't the "amass huge army" type of player, so I probably never hit the limit.

I don't think the low limit was anything about what kind of game Warzone was supposed to be, but more that Pumpkin underestimated the power of the computers most players would be playing Warzone on.

It should allow you to fire anywhere you tell it to, like in old C&C even. That it doesn't is just a relic of the old starcrafty projectile code.

Either way a spread angle should also be supported and should create the right effect.

I guess. But I think there's a reason most modern games don't do it that way.

You should push for supporting both fast moving projectiles (as much as possible) and hitscan weapon collisions. Combined with the current homing weapons, life will be good.

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by "hitscan weapon collisions".

And no one's working on projectile code right now, so we'd both we waiting a pretty long time. I guess I can try to hack the current projectile code to something more useful, though.

[Zarel]

More changes:

Removed:
- Artillery to hover multiplier decreased from 110% to 25%
- Bunker-buster to hover multiplier increased from 20% to 60%

Added:
- Artillery to tracks multiplier decreased from 65% to 40%
- Artillery to half-tracks multiplier decreased from 80% to 60%
- Artillery to wheels multiplier decreased from 95% to 80%
- Anti-tank to hover multiplier decreased from 100% to 90%

Right now, it seems like hover is too weak. Even compared to wheels, the only thing hover has better resistance against than wheels is AT, and even at 80%, that's plenty enough for AT to instakill hovers. In fact, currently, hover resistances are basically just "Worst of both worlds between tanks and cyborgs". That's kind of why I wanted artillery-to-hover damage to be lower.

Maybe make hovercrafts fireproof? I'm not sure we can make up a good reason for that.

[Kacen]

I love how TVR is consistently ignoring my points about the Angel SRMA. :rolleyes:

[Zarel]

I love how TVR is consistently ignoring my points about the Angel SRMA. :rolleyes:

He's ignoring mine, too, so we have that in common.

[Kacen]

More changes:
Right now, it seems like hover is too weak. Even compared to wheels, the only thing hover has better resistance against than wheels is AT, and even at 80%, that's plenty enough for AT to instakill hovers. In fact, currently, hover resistances are basically just "Worst of both worlds between tanks and cyborgs". That's kind of why I wanted artillery-to-hover damage to be lower.

The only major disadvantage (relatively) hover has over wheels, currently and always had, was weight support. Hover has the poorest weight supporting abilities; that should remain IMO, as it makes sense. Hover is more prone to being detrimentally effected by heavy turrets than any other ground propulsion, and it should stay that way. In fact I think it might be a good balancing factor to lower it's weight support even more, so it would encourage people to not rely on hover units for heavy vehicles. Point is for most people there's little incentive to using wheels over hover and this may give people more incentive and be more "balancing".

It also was the propulsion most effected by uneven terrain (correct me if I'm wrong), as it would slow horridly on bumpy ground, that also makes sense. This isn't sci-fi repulsorlifts this is realistic hovercraft. That should be it's major tradeoff.

More changes:
Maybe make hovercrafts fireproof? I'm not sure we can make up a good reason for that.

If anything hover should be as frail or more than wheels, as the components aren't very durable.

[Kacen]

He's ignoring mine, too, so we have that in common.

He doesn't take into account that Angel SRMA's (As well as mini-pod artillery) are the only indirect fire weapons capable of firing on the move and rotating their turrets. This makes it well suited to support main attack groups. And indirect fire in that case can have advantages, targeting specific units behind others for instance, just generally raining hell over the enemy, or shooting over a wall at close range.

By themselves they're more vulnerable but with attack groups Angel SRMAs can be a great asset.

[Zarel]

The only major disadvantage (relatively) hover has over wheels, currently and always had, was weight support. Hover has the poorest weight supporting abilities; that should remain IMO, as it makes sense. Hover is more prone to being detrimentally effected by heavy turrets than any other ground propulsion, and it should stay that way. In fact I think it might be a good balancing factor to lower it's weight support even more, so it would encourage people to not rely on hover units for heavy vehicles. Point is for most people there's little incentive to using wheels over hover and this may give people more incentive and be more "balancing".

It also was the propulsion most effected by uneven terrain (correct me if I'm wrong), as it would slow horridly on bumpy ground, that also makes sense. This isn't sci-fi repulsorlifts this is realistic hovercraft. That should be it's major tradeoff.

If anything hover should be as frail or more than wheels, as the components aren't very durable.

I can accept that hovers can be weaker than wheels in some area, but it should be better than wheels in others. The way you describe it, hovers just sound like a weaker version of wheels that can't support heavy turrets, slows down on uneven ground, and is less durable.

[Deus Siddis]

True, but "a newb or anyone who doesn't know the tech tree" very well could easily putz around in T1 for an hour, while everyone else has rushed to T3. That's a far bigger disadvantage than using sensors with MRA, and that's a disadvantage that pretty much all RTSes share. Plus, you don't know the range of any weapon until you use it, and I figured out that you weren't supposed to use MRA with sensors after the first time I tried it. Then again, I was playing 1.00, so there was no Ripple Rocket to compare it to in the first place.

Intuitiveness is about making the tech tree easier to learn and remember, so that a newbe doesn't have to be newbe for nearly as long.

What makes WZ different from other RTS' in this department is the size and complexity of the tech tree makes it take more time to learn and master. An intuitive tech tree could help counter this issue, but unfortunately the tech tree isn't that intuitive currently, which means alot of trial, error and memorization is needed.

I agree that it would be nice to disallow MRA/SRMA from being assigned to sensors, but then I bet I'm going to have other people complaining about how unintuitive it would be that these two are the only indirect weapons that can't be assigned to sensors.

But didn't you say the mortar was already this way?

Well, it is a lighter, shorter ranged weapon with a somewhat similar purpose. It's just that it's a ton lighter and a ton shorter ranged and demands a radically different play style. But the purpose of "kill enemy structures" is roughly the same.

Heh, yeah exactly.

I guess, but that's not really real guidance. I mean, that's just in-game flavor text; no upgrade does anything but mess with numbers. In terms of game code, there are only two levels of guidance for direct weapons: direct, and direct-homing. Lancer is direct. Scourge is direct-homing.

And either way, it's plausible that a wire guidance system would work for ground units, but not very well for aircraft. And then there's the point that you can't really angle the launcher up very well in the first place.

It still just makes more sense that if unguided rockets can be used against aircraft, guided missiles should work too.

And we need more AA capable weapons anyway. Tank columns being so entirely dependent on a couple of 100% specialized AA vehicles is still a problem, even if your rebalancing of dedicated AA balances air raids on bases.

I don't think the low limit was anything about what kind of game Warzone was supposed to be, but more that Pumpkin underestimated the power of the computers most players would be playing Warzone on.

It is just of one of many features that when combined give WZ its tactical flavor.

I guess. But I think there's a reason most modern games don't do it that way.

I wouldn't say that. Just looking at FOSS RTS, Glest, Spring and Warzone use simulated projectiles. Don't know about 0 A.D., it is too new.

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by "hitscan weapon collisions".

It is a term used alot in FPS games. Instead of traveling projectile represented by a sphere or whatever, it casts like a ray and it does damage to the first thing (or everything) that it collides with, instantly. But it can still miss if it isn't aimed properly, if something is in the way, if the random "spread" makes it shoot around the target, etc.

It is used to roughly simulate very fast moving ordnance, like bullets or photons (lasers).

And no one's working on projectile code right now, so we'd both we waiting a pretty long time. I guess I can try to hack the current projectile code to something more useful, though.

I though you said in the hover-artillery thread that DevUrandum was working on this?

[TVR]

... Right now, it seems like hover is too weak ...

Hover can float over terrain, which should include the 1.11 AT mines and possibly tank-traps.

Perhaps if rivers as terrain features ever became more common ala Alpha 12, the flexibility of hover could be demonstrated due to the apparent lack of bridges after The Collapse.

... (SRMAs) are to be used like Mini-Rocket Artillery ...

Miniature Rocket Artillery does not exist in real-life for a reason: miniature rockets are too short range to be used as artillery.

This applies to the Short-Range Missile Array as well, it has the artillery damage type, HP bonus, and price, but not the range. It's difficult to justify when ranged artillery fulfils the the same roles without the risk.

[Kacen]

I can accept that hovers can be weaker than wheels in some area, but it should be better than wheels in others. The way you describe it, hovers just sound like a weaker version of wheels that can't support heavy turrets, slows down on uneven ground, and is less durable.

They already have strengths. They're the fastest propulsion type and they're amphibious. We knew that as a given so I didn't mention it.

[Kacen]

Miniature Rocket Artillery does not exist in real-life for a reason: miniature rockets are too short range to be used as artillery.

This applies to the Short-Range Missile Array as well, it has the artillery damage type, HP bonus, and price, but not the range. It's difficult to justify when ranged artillery fulfils the the same roles without the risk.

See my posts above. It can fire on the move, it's turret can turn (only artillery that can do that besides mini-pod artillery), it's way more powerful than the mini-pod rockets, and the fact it's indirect can yield for some interesting tactics, even if it has the range of an average direct fire weapon.

Honestly what are you suggesting we do with the Angel missiles? It fills it's own unique niche with the mini-pod artillery (yet it's way more effective) by being a highly mobile, responsive short-range artillery platform. It has it's place. Just let it go. You're ether implying we should make it some slightly weaker version of the Archangel or get rid of it all together it seems, both which are asinine.

Make some Angel missile units on hover bodies and send them with your attack groups, see how useful they are as hit and run units. They don't need to stop and aim to fire like mortars.

[Zarel]

Intuitiveness is about making the tech tree easier to learn and remember, so that a newbe doesn't have to be newbe for nearly as long.

What makes WZ different from other RTS' in this department is the size and complexity of the tech tree makes it take more time to learn and master. An intuitive tech tree could help counter this issue, but unfortunately the tech tree isn't that intuitive currently, which means alot of trial, error and memorization is needed.

Well, I still disagree with the assertion that my changes make it any less intuitive; if anything, it makes it more intuitive (I did take out the artillery-hover modifier change, remember).

But didn't you say the mortar was already this way?

Grenadier cyborg, to be exact. It also has a similar usage to MRA. If I ever get around to doing it, I'll ask around and see what people think of the idea.

It still just makes more sense that if unguided rockets can be used against aircraft, guided missiles should work too.

And we need more AA capable weapons anyway. Tank columns being so entirely dependent on a couple of 100% specialized AA vehicles is still a problem, even if your rebalancing of dedicated AA balances air raids on bases.

Unguided mini-rockets can be used against aircraft since they're light enough. Maybe true rockets and missiles are too heavy to be used against AA?

Per freaks out whenever I make rockets/missiles any more powerful, so I'm going to have to decline on that one. It's more intuitive this way, anyway.

It is just of one of many features that when combined give WZ its tactical flavor.

No, the high unit limit is pretty clearly intentional, and the original unit limit is pretty clearly only because of platform limitations.

I wouldn't say that. Just looking at FOSS RTS, Glest, Spring and Warzone use simulated projectiles. Don't know about 0 A.D., it is too new.

Well, I was referring more to commercial RTSes. Open-source can innovate sometimes, but they also tend to get things wrong that the rest of the industry usually gets right.

It is a term used alot in FPS games. Instead of traveling projectile represented by a sphere or whatever, it casts like a ray and it does damage to the first thing (or everything) that it collides with, instantly. But it can still miss if it isn't aimed properly, if something is in the way, if the random "spread" makes it shoot around the target, etc.

It is used to roughly simulate very fast moving ordnance, like bullets or photons (lasers).

Ah, yeah, that's what I mean by "instant-hit". Lasers and laser-like weapons (like Commander) should be like that, but rails probably shouldn't; they should just be extremely fast.

I though you said in the hover-artillery thread that DevUrandum was working on this?

Yes, technically, Devu is working on this. Devu also hasn't worked on Warzone for the greater part of a year, and so we really shouldn't be expecting it to be done anytime in the next year or two.

Unless I say that Per, Zarel, or i-NoD is working on something, don't expect it anytime soon.

Hover can float over terrain, which should include the 1.11 AT mines and possibly tank-traps.

Perhaps if rivers as terrain features ever became more common ala Alpha 12, the flexibility of hover could be demonstrated due to the apparent lack of bridges after The Collapse.

We don't have mines, and they aren't planned (by the way, they were in 1.12, not 1.11).

And tank traps are a bit tall for hover to float over. Until water becomes more common, I think hover needs some other advantage over the tank-like propulsions.

This applies to the Short-Range Missile Array as well, it has the artillery damage type, HP bonus, and price, but not the range. It's difficult to justify when ranged artillery fulfils the the same roles without the risk.

What part of "3x the DPS" do you have trouble understanding?

They already have strengths. They're the fastest propulsion type and they're amphibious. We knew that as a given so I didn't mention it.

Considering hover propulsion is a lot harder to research than most other propulsions, that they're only faster than wheels in some situations (only with a light weapon on smooth, flat terrain), and that they're only a bit faster, it should hardly be inferior to wheels in every other way.

[Kacen]

What part of "3x the DPS" do you have trouble understanding?

That and it can fire on the move and turn its turret.
(Big enough for you to read, TVR?)

Edit by Zarel: Sorry, normally, I don't bother to correct grammar mistakes, but since this one was huge and bold, I had the urge to fix "it's" to "its".

Considering hover propulsion is a lot harder to research than most other propulsions, that they're only faster than wheels in some situations (only with a light weapon on smooth, flat terrain), and that they're only a bit faster, it should hardly be inferior to wheels in every other way.

I think the fact it's also amphibious means it's fairly advantageous over every other ground propulsion. Fact is, as it is now the very slight advantages wheels have over hover don't matter much, hover's strengths usually outweigh it. I just thought some balancing was in order.